Analysis and forecasting of nonresidential electricity consumption in Romania

Electricity consumption forecast has fundamental importance in the energy planning of a country. In this paper, we present an analysis and two forecast models for nonresidential electricity consumption in Romania. A first part of the paper is dedicated to the estimation of GDP and price elasticities of consumption. Nonresidential short run GDP and price elasticities are found to be approximately 0.136 and 0.0752, respectively, whereas long run GDP and price elasticities are equal to 0.496 and 0.274 respectively. The second part of the study is dedicated to the forecasting of nonresidential electricity consumption up to year 2020. A Holt–Winters exponential smoothing method and a trigonometric grey model with rolling mechanism (TGMRM) are employed for the consumption prediction. The two models lead to similar results, with an average deviation less than 5%. This deviation is to be considered acceptable in relation to the time horizon considered in the present study.